By Gurmukh Singh, IANS
Vancouver : An Indo-Canadian man of Punjabi origin, who had kidnapped the daughter of his former employer this January and demanded $500,000 as ransom by posing as an Al-Qaeda terrorist, has been given a reduced sentence of 11 years by the British Columbia Court of Appeal here.
Amandeep Singh Randhawa, 26, who lives in the Punjabi concentration of Surrey, was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment by a lower court in June. Randhawa had moved the British Columbia Court of Appeal, seeking reduction in his jail sentence by to three to six years.
The father of the girl, who owned the furniture store where Randhawa worked, had sacked him from his job. To settle scores with him, Randhawa and his friend kidnapped the employer’s daughter, Rachna Jaswal, on Jan 19 while she was travelling alone in her car.
Randhawa is said to have driven alongside Jaswal’s car and tricked her into coming out by telling her that the tyres of her car were flat and needed mending.
When 22-year-old Jaswal came out, the duo threw her into their vehicle and drove away. She was beaten up, blindfolded, handcuffed and kept captive for six hours in the vehicle, which they parked near Randhawa’s residence in Surrey.
However, the girl somehow managed to get out of the car and raise alarm. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which had put Randhawa’s home under surveillance, rescued her.
During her captivity, Randhawa called Jaswal’s father posing as an Al Qaeda terrorist and demanding $500,000 in ransom if he wanted to save his daughter.
During the hearings, the girl recalled her trauma as “the worst six hours of my life. It is always the last thing I think about at night and the first thing I think about in the morning”.
Randhawa pleaded guilty to kidnapping and ransom before Judge Peder Gulbransen who said that “if this man had not pleaded guilty, had he had a record, I would have sentenced him to 15 years”.
His partner in crime is yet to go on trial.